Mild: Cholula
Medium: El Yucateco Rojo
Hot: Blair’s Mega Death
Mild: Cholula
Medium: El Yucateco Rojo
Hot: Blair’s Mega Death
I like the sweet-and-hot sauces used in Rochester, NY at places like Sal’s Birdland or Country Sweet Chicken and Ribs. I haven’t encountered anything like them elsewhere.
It used to be you could order Smitty’s Hot Sauce from Rochester, but they’re out of business. You can still get Boss Sauce and Sal’s Sauce, though, and you can order via the internet.
Boss Sauce:
Country Sweet
http://rocwiki.org/Country_Sweet
Sal’s Birdland Sauce
Whenever hot sauce threads come up, I think two things. 1: Maine Sharp’s and 2: Damn it, I’m out of Marie Sharp’s, I gotta get some more.
Marie Sharp’s FTW! I buy it by the case (cheaper that way from the reseller we deal with). We typically get 6 of the white label and 6 of the gold label/fiery.
Tabasco, for me, is the best to eat with fried potatoes. It’s excellent on hash browns. And a mix of Tabasco and ketchup is the perfect thing to eat on french fries IMO.
There are a dozen hot sauces that are excellent, some mentioned here, but my favorite of the truly mass market labels is Cholula. Their garlic version is my all-purpose condiment. But their whole line is pretty good. Spicy enough, but also very flavorful.
Cholula isn’t the hottest stuff you can buy, but I’ve never tasted anything better.
Jerk. You covered evry one of my favourites and left me nothing to say…![]()
I’m surprised no one brought up Frank’s Red Hot. It’s hot, but it doesn’t take over from the flavor of the food. And I see on the label Frank’s claims to be the “secret” behind the first Buffalo Wings in 1964.
Tabasco, Cholula & Sciracha are all classics & part of any well-stocked kitchen.
I’d like to nominate a salsa–Wrights of Texas. Sold chilled–in a box at Kroger’s. And at other places or ordered online.
Haven’t tried the red version because it’s hard to imagine anything better than the green one.
Yes, Frank’s is the base flavor for Buffalo Wings. Oddly enough, except for wings, I’m not a big fan of Frank’s, but wing sauce is reason enough to keep it around.
I typically have Frank’s Red Hot in the fridge, I like it better than Tabasco. I won;t really even eat a chicken/mashed potato/corn combo without it drenched in Franks. I also throw it on chili dogs/ chicago style dogs.
Cholula Original is also fantastic, I love both the red green when I’m out somewhere and run across them.
The authentic (i.e., original) Buffalo sauce is 50% Franks and 50% butter. Supposedly. Wikipedia used to agree, but now it equivocates and lists several origin stories for Buffalo wings.
My favorite is Sriracha, and Tabasco is a distant second. I also like Frank’s, but more as a condiment on burgers than used like a traditional hot sauce. I’m not a big fan of Louisiana hot sauces, Texas Pete, Cholula, etc. But on rare occasions I like to use the pickled pepper sauces you get by brining peppers in vinegar. Like Steak N’ Shake has on their tables. That stuff is really good in chili.
Well, nobody seems to say definitively what the original Anchor Bar sauce was, but Franks and margarine (or butter–this is a point of controversy) seems to be the agreed-upon base.
All my choices are already well spoken for here. I will just add that on a whim I tried Sriracha mixed-in with some spaghetti sauce and found it to be wonderful! Great on meatball sandwiches, as well as just stirring into pasta dishes. I think the sweetness of the tomato-based sauce matches the sweetness of the Sriracha, and all you feel is the additional heat without affecting the flavor of the pasta sauce. Great Italian-SE Asian combo!
I kept Trappey’s Chef Magic Jalapeño Sauce on hand, more for the great flavor than heat, until my local grocer stopped carrying it.
Most people reading this thread are aware of sriracha, but Huy Fong, the maker of the most common sriracha sauce also makes a chili garlic sauce which is my favorite for just about everything.
I’ll jump on the bandwagon, El Yucateco green habanero is awesome.
Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
I put that shit on everything
This man speaketh the truth!
I used to only buy the green El Yucateco. I recently bought a bottle of the red, because it’s not as hot. (har) Ok, maybe scoville unit-wise it’s not as hot. In my mouth-wise it’s still habanero sauce, ha-ha!